Nurse wins week on isolated Swedish island watching film festival

An emergency ward nurse has been selected to spend a week on an isolated island in the North Sea to watch the entire movie programme of Scandinavia’s largest film festival.

Lisa Enroth was chosen from 12,000 volunteers to enjoy the temporary cinema-for-one on the island of Hamneskar at Pater Noster, a former lighthouse turned boutique hotel, off the coast of Sweden.

The nurse, from Sweden, has a passion for film, and said the isolation would give her “time to reflect and be alone” after a busy year dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic.

This year’s Goteborg Film Festival, which runs from January 29th to February 8th, is exploring the social isolation resulting from Covid-19.

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The Isolated Cinema is only accessible by small boat and is located at the very edge of an archipelago in one of western Sweden’s most barren and windswept locations.

Ms Enroth, who left for the island on Saturday, watches the films online either in her room or a living room, or she can watch them from the top of the lighthouse itself where organisers have set up a small screen surrounded by an amazing view.

The artistic director of the 44th Goteborg Film Festival, Jonas Holmberg, hopes this extreme viewing experience will help reflect on what the pandemic has done to our relationship with cinema.

“During this pandemic, so many people have turned to cinema when in isolation,” he said.

“But the pandemic has also changed how we experience films.”

Like most events, the film festival has moved online as Covid-19 restrictions ban public gatherings, but organisers have set-up a real-time streaming platform accessible to people living in Sweden in a bid to replicate, albeit virtually, the collective cinema viewing experience.

At the Draken cinema, the traditional home of the film festival, only one ticket is available for each screening, but filmmakers, actors or producers may also appear to speak about their work.

The opening gala saw the Swedish premiere of Tove, the 2020 biographical film of the Finnish author and illustrator Tove Jansson, creator of the Moomins series.

Walking down an empty red carpet, the movie’s director and lead actress dressed the part and the organisers sought to replicate the excitement of a premiere to the lone viewer in the hall. But a buzz was also found online, with people posting photos dressed up for the premiere and drinking champagne.

“We want to encourage that and make it as much as a social experience as is possible,” Mr Holmberg said. – PA